


The Cat's Smile

by ExiledDuke (PersonalSpin)



Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, it's really cartoonish though?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonalSpin/pseuds/ExiledDuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's fallen down the rabbit hole, and if he thought the Magical World was strange, he hasn't seen anything yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cat's Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Harry Potter/Alice's Adventures Cross-over, written for class and now posted here. Fair warning, it's a little old and a little weird. And my tags continue to be even weirder, so please don't take them seriously.

Harry had a dilemma: he didn't know if anything dangerous -- something Professor Quirell would stutter nervously over when teaching -- lived in stately Victorian mansions small enough to peer into the top floor windows of. It didn't _look_ dangerous after all, but he was still having trouble deciding whether to approach it or not when he became aware of something tapping his leg and a small voice urging him to kindly move, please.  
  
"Sorry." He lifted his leg and a little person, what Harry could see of him beneath the enormous powdered wig he was wearing, scuttled forward. He ran toward the house and knocked sharply on the door, speaking briefly with the equally small person who answered it, whose bulging eyes made him somewhat reminiscent of a frog. The runner held out a letter to the frog, having somehow hidden it when it was easily taller than he was, before hurrying back in Harry's direction. He ran under Harry's leg again and disappeared back into the forest as quickly as he'd appeared.  
  
Harry lowered his leg and decided that if the little people lived in mansions and delivered post then they would probably help him, or at least know the way back to Hogwarts. He took the mushroom out of his pocket and started to carefully nibble on it until he was no taller than the runner and the frog. He marvelled at it again and reminded himself to ask Hermione how it worked later.  
  
He walked towards the mansion, but the person with the bulging eyes was sat on the lawn and staring at the sky. Harry was almost convinced it _was_ a frog, despite the wig and the uniform it was wearing.  
  
"Excuse me, can you help me?" Harry asked.  
  
The frog didn't look at him. "Can I?"  
  
"I need to get back to Hogwarts." There was a loud crash from inside the mansion but the frog didn't seem to notice.  
  
"It's very well asking for help before I know I can give it," said the frog, "and even if I could I wouldn't."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Would that I could, not knowing if I can, but I know that I wouldn't if I could. So I won't."  
  
Harry waited for the frog to say more but it had clearly said all it meant to. "Can I go inside and ask someone in there?"  
  
"Can you?"  
  
Harry gave up, and walked to the door of the house. He lifted his hand to knock but he could already tell that whoever was making the noise inside, and it was a great deal of noise even from outside, wouldn't be able to hear him anyway. He glanced at the frog, who hadn't moved, and went inside.  
  
The air was thick with smoke inside the mansion and he coughed as his eyes mmediately began to sting. Through his tears and the smog, Harry saw a woman holding a baby while an older woman furiously stirred a pot -- the source of the smoke. Whatever potion she was bent over had a lot of pepper, as Harry sneezed when he tentatively tried to breathe.  
  
"Hello?" he called.  
  
"Yes? Quiet!" the woman holding the baby snapped, shaking the infant violently when it sneezed too.  
  
"Can you help me get back to Hogwarts?" Harry asked, after a moment.  
  
"Where is that? Pig!" she shrieked. She started asking rapid-fire questions, shaking the baby at the end of each as though it were necessary to punctuate them. "North? East? South? West? In the country or abroad? By rail or by boat? Yesterday or tomorrow?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"If you don't know, how do you expect charity? You should know where you're going before you go." The baby's face had turned an impressive purple, and the woman shook it with a strange sense of finality before throwing it at Harry. He managed to catch it but struggled to keep a hold when it wriggled like it'd been jinxed. "Take care of that, I must get ready to play croquet with the Queen."  
  
The old woman at the cauldron whirled around suddenly and flung a pan at her, but Harry thought she must have had a Protective Charm cast as she didn't seem to notice it colliding with her shoulder with a loud clang as she swept from the room.  
  
A body-wracking sneeze from the baby reminded Harry that the air was only getting smoggier, the witch turning back to her potion after her outburst, so he shifted and rearranged his grip until he had the infant in a headlock, giving him a hand free to open the door back outside.  
  
He didn't walk far from the mansion, busy as he was trying to rub his eyes of the pepper and not drop the baby, which was making it harder through its apparent attempts at escape. Harry rolled it over, trying to tuck it under his arm like a stack of books, only to see that it wasn't a baby anymore but a pig. He finally dropped it in his shock, being reminded rather forcibly of his cousin, but it landed on its feet and trotted into the forest, apparently no worse for the wear.  
  
"I thought it would," said someone behind him, and Harry turned to see a large cat curled on the grass and grinning broadly. "Makes a handsome pig, don't you think?"  
  
Harry didn't know what to think of the cat, or the pig, or the two witches making a cacophony in the mansion, but he didn't have many options left to him. "Can you help me get back to Hogwarts?" he asked without much hope.  
  
"I might," said the cat, and its smile grew wider.


End file.
